Letter to the Business Editor

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That an im­mi­gra­tion law­yer ad­vo­cates for more im­mi­gra­tion is hardly sur­pris­ing (Busi­ness Fo­rum: “H-1B Visa Short­age A Se­ri­ous Im­ped­i­ment to Lo­cal Hir­ing,” May 10). But Robert White­hill’s mes­sage that more H-1B vi­sas are of ur­gent im­por­tance to the busi­ness com­mu­nity is wrong.

Numer­ous non­par­ti­san stud­ies have de­bunked the long-pro­moted idea that Amer­ica needs more for­eign-born work­ers, es­pe­cially H-1Bs. The H-1B nar­ra­tive has been skill­fully pack­aged and pro­moted by well-funded ad­vo­cacy groups like Mark Zuck­er­berg’s FWD.us as es­sen­tial to the na­tional in­ter­est. In re­al­ity, it re­flects the eco­nomic in­ter­ests of tech com­pa­nies and uni­ver­sities that em­ploy non­im­mi­grant visa hold­ers. Read “It Doesn’t Add Up,” pub­lished in the Co­lum­bia Jour­nal­ism Review, June 2013.

With about 90 mil­lion Amer­i­cans not at­tached to the la­bor force, the na­tion needs fewer over­seas work­ers, not more. As for the “O” visa that Mr. White­hill said had “lim­ited ap­pli­ca­tions,” I sug­gest they’re “lim­ited” only by the ap­pli­cant’s cre­ativ­ity or lack thereof. Justin Bieber, he of ques­tion­able char­ac­ter, came to Amer­ica with an “O” visa.

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